Overcoming Pedagogical Solitude: The transformative power ...

Running head: OVERCOMING PEDAGOGICAL SOLITUDE

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Overcoming Pedagogical Solitude:

The transformative power of discipline-specific Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs)

Mariela Tovar, Rosalie Jukier, Jennie Ferris, and Kristen Cardoso

McGill University

[submission version; forthcoming (2015) in To Improve the Academy.]

Note: The authors would like to thank Professor Tina Piper for the key role she played in the creation of the

Law Faculty Learning Communities and the Law Teaching Network Project, and Dean Daniel Jutras for his

leadership and support of the Law Teaching Network Project. Thanks also go to Teaching and Learning

Services Director Laura Winer and Professor Shauna Van Praagh for their insightful comments on earlier

versions of this manuscript. Finally, we thank the participants in our FLCs for their commitment to teaching

and learning and for their generosity in sharing their reflections on the FLC experience.

OVERCOMING PEDAGOGICAL SOLITUDE

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Abstract

This article describes a multi-year Faculty Learning Community (FLC) program as a strategy to

overcome pedagogical solitude (Shulman, 1993) in a discipline-specific context. Participant

interviews shed light on their FLC experiences and perceived impact on their teaching and

students’ learning. Grounded within the particularities of the disciplinary context and based on

the results of interviews reflecting a highly positive experience, we articulate key factors that had

a major role in the success of the FLCs, framed within Lee, Hyman and Luginbuhl’s (2007)

concept of readiness. We also suggest contextual questions to consider when transferring our

experience to other institutional contexts.


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Overcoming Pedagogical Solitude:

The transformative power of discipline-specific Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs)

Introduction

We close the classroom door and experience pedagogical solitude, whereas in our

life as scholars, we are members of active communities of conversation,

communities of evaluation, communities in which we gather with others in our

invisible colleges to exchange our findings, our methods, our excuses.

(Shulman, 1993, p. 6)

For university professors, a sense of community may be implicit where research is

concerned, but is not always apparent when it comes to pedagogy. This paper describes our

experiences with Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) as a strategy to overcome pedagogical

solitude (Shulman, 1993) in the Faculty of Law at our large, research-intensive Canadian

university. These FLCs have been one aspect of an ongoing collaboration between the Faculty

of Law and our university’s center for teaching and learning – Teaching and Learning Services

(TLS). The broader Law Teaching Network project aims to generate a shared commitment to

excellent, innovative and engaging teaching and learning practices via a comprehensive approach

to supporting teaching and learning in the Faculty.

The authors are two educational developers at TLS, a professor in the Faculty of Law,

and a graduate student assistant (now a librarian). Respectively, we have participated in and

facilitated numerous discipline-specific FLCs over the past few years. Although anecdotal

evidence suggested that professors found the FLCs useful, we wanted to develop a more


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thorough understanding of three components: participants’ perceptions of (1) the FLC

experience, (2) the FLC organization and process, and (3) the impact of their participation in

these communities on their teaching. To this end, we developed and carried out a structured

interview process with a sample of participants. In this article, we will discuss our approach to

facilitating these communities in light of our particular context as compared to the literature. We

will describe the methodology and results of the interviews, concluding with lessons learned

from our FLC project and our experience that may be transferable to other institutions.

Context and review of the literature

Four years ago, the Chair of the Law Faculty Curriculum Committee approached TLS

with a request for assistance in designing a mentoring program. Results of a survey conducted

by the Committee had indicated that faculty members wished to have more opportunities to talk

with their colleagues about their teaching. At that time, the Chair thought that a mentoring

program could provide those opportunities. After several conversations in which we explored

different mentoring structures that could facilitate conversations about teaching, we came across

the literature on Faculty Learning Communities (e.g., Cox, 2004; Haynes et al., 2010). FLCs

showed promise as a vehicle to address the faculty’s desire to “open their classroom doors” by

gathering in informal learning groups to talk about teaching. It was hoped that the FLCs would

provide opportunities for such conversations within the Law Faculty.

When we met with the Dean to discuss the Faculty’s interests, it became clear that there

was potential for a larger project, consistent with the university’s strategic directions. With the

Dean’s support, we submitted a successful proposal to the Provost for funding a multi-year

project that ultimately involved a variety of teaching enhancement and curriculum reform

initiatives. These included the FLC program, as well as developing undergraduate program


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outcomes and undertaking a curriculum mapping exercise, offering workshops, teaching retreats,

and teaching and education conference funding.

As we explored the possibility of developing FLCs, we looked at their definition and

potential goals and roles in promoting conversations about teaching. According to Milton Cox

(2004), an education consultant at Miami University of Ohio largely credited with standardizing

the practice and structure of FLCs, “creating a faculty learning community program is one

approach that engages community in the cause of student and faculty learning and transforming

our institutions of higher education into learning organizations” (p. 5). The idea of community is

key to the FLC, which is built for the purpose of actively developing and discussing teaching and

learning in higher education. These communities generally follow the same design: they are

voluntary, and cross or inter-disciplinary. In addition to faculty members, these communities

may include professional staff, and undergraduate or graduate students. FLCs can range from six

to fifteen members, although it is noted that group sizes of eight to twelve members are

particularly recommended (Cox, 2002). The duration is generally one year; members meet

frequently throughout the year and develop specific, actionable goals leading to clearly defined

outcomes or “artifacts” (Cox, 2002; FLC Developers’ Institute, 2007; Macpherson, 2007).

Communities can be conceived as either of two types: cohort-based or topic-based. Cohort-

based groups focus on issues or needs of a particular group of people, such as junior faculty,

department chairs, or senior faculty. Meanwhile, topic-based groups are open to anyone at any

level in their career interested in exploring a particular topic, such as integrating technology into

the classroom (Cox, 2004, pp. 8-9).

FLCs can have a variety of outcomes or goals, including professional development (Cox,

2004), fostering collaboration within a campus and even between cross-state campuses (Hansen


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et al., 2004), promoting the teaching-research nexus (Slapcoff & Harris, 2014), or serving as

agents for intentional cultural transformation, such as promoting diversity (Petrone, 2004). They

may also contribute to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) (Richlin & Cox, 2004),

be used as a form of new faculty orientation or as a complement to a traditional orientation

(Richlin & Essington, 2004), and promote shared governance (Phillips, Sweet & Blythe, 2011).

Bearing the literature in mind, we worked towards a definition of what FLCs would look

like in our context. We were inspired by the “Faculty inquiry into action” report from the

Carnegie Foundation (2008) to articulate our goal of creating an environment in which dialogues

about teaching and learning could occur among colleagues at all career stages, “where

innovations in curriculum and pedagogy [could be developed], and where questions and answers

about [legal] education [could be] exchanged, critiqued, and built upon” (p. 3).

The overarching goal of the FLCs offered was to stimulate meaningful conversations

about teaching in a supportive, legal education-specific environment. Given the Faculty’s

emphasis upon the need to find occasions to discuss their teaching with colleagues in the same

discipline, we chose to make these FLCs discipline-specific. This was a significant departure

from recommendations in the literature, which emphasizes the need to gather together

participants from different disciplines. This recommendation is based on the concern that

conversations within a discipline risk focusing on substantive content issues as opposed to

pedagogy. We kept this in mind while facilitating the FLCs and in subsequently evaluating the

participants’ FLC experience as synthesized in this article. Further, this recommendation

contains an implicit assumption that instructors in the same faculty can speak to one another at

any time about their teaching. Our experience demonstrated, however, that finding the time and

place for those discussions had previously been challenging in this Faculty context.


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The program was officially launched by the Dean in 2010, with the additional incentive

of a small stipend toward conference attendance for participants. In terms of support, an FLC

manual was created by the educational developers to outline the main goals and characteristics of

the program. The Dean also designated a faculty member who acted as a liaison, working

closely with the educational developers in the planning of the FLCs as well as other aspects of

the larger project, a role that proved to be invaluable to the success of the project. Educational

developers facilitated the meetings and contributed to the smooth running and usefulness of the

FLCs through actions as varied as developing resource lists and annotated bibliographies related

to discussion topics, benchmarking, and coordinating the scheduling and room-booking for the

meetings.

Characteristics of FLCs in the Faculty of Law Discipline-specific

Open to faculty and staff teaching at the Faculty

Number of participants: 4-11

Meet a minimum of four times a year

Voluntary membership

11 topic-based FLCs for a total of 58 participants (34 unique participants) = ~75% of Faculty

Flexible in terms of outcome (artifact vs. process)

Figure 1. Characteristics of FLCs in the Faculty of Law

Over a period of three years, the educational developers facilitated 11 topic-based FLCs,

with the participation of 34 unique participants, representing approximately 75% of the Faculty.

Topics were suggested at the beginning of each year by the educational developers, and faculty

members were encouraged to suggest their own topics as well. The topics chosen reflected

individual and group interests: learning-centered course re-design, advancing teaching and

research concurrently, teaching and learning with technologies, active learning strategies, peer

observation in the classroom, and assessment of student learning. Our FLCs had a minimum of


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four meetings a year for about an hour and a half each. Membership was voluntary and the FLCs

were open to all full-time faculty and teaching staff. In certain circumstances, they also included

student affairs staff, and doctoral students with a teaching role also participated. A minimum of

three participants was required for an FLC to be created; membership ultimately ranged from 4-

11 members per FLC. In addition, based on the literature, we emphasized to participants that the

goals, outcomes and values of our FLCs should be explicit, shared and documented. However,

we decided to adopt a flexible approach in terms of expected outcomes of the FLCs. Although

participants were encouraged to consider what outcomes they would personally or collectively

like to see from their participation, we departed from the literature in that we did not insist on

participants producing an “artifact” (Cox, 2002) at the end of the FLC. We felt that in some

cases, the process itself was enough.

Evaluation of the Three-Year Faculty Learning Community Program

After three years of running FLCs in the Faculty of Law, it seemed to be an opportune

moment to collect data regarding the participants’ perceptions of the effect such learning

communities had on their teaching and on their students’ learning. In particular, we thought it

important to obtain empirical results in light of the fact that the FLCs in the Faculty of Law did

not always follow the standard characteristics as recommended by the literature.

Methodology

Our study of the three-year long FLC program used structured interviews of past

participants to assess the impact of participation in one or more FLCs on teaching and learning in

the Faculty of Law. Three FLCs [Table 1] were selected for the purpose of this study:

“Rethinking Your Course,” the “Clinical Legal Education Working Group” (CLEWG), and

“Advancing Teaching and Research Together.” The structural differences of these varied FLCs,


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along with their distinct origins and the opportunity they afforded to analyze the evolution of an

FLC over an extended period of time, were the basis for selection for our study.

[Table 1. here]

Table 1. Summary of characteristics for three selected FLCs

The first FLC, “Rethinking Your Course,” was offered three separate times over three

years, with different participants each year (four to six) discussing a variety of topics that fell

under the general theme of course design and evaluation. The second, on Clinical Legal

Education, grouped together a larger number of people (11 unique participants) and ran for three

years with the majority of the members participating for all three years. The third, “Advancing

Teaching and Research Together,” had four participants who met over the course of a single

year. This FLC had perhaps the most visible link to SoTL, given that participants aimed to

explore the link between teaching and research (Richlin & Cox, 2004; Slapcoff & Harris, 2014).

In addition to structural differences between these particular FLCs, the manner in which

they originated was also distinct. The three iterations of “Rethinking Your Course” evidenced

the most typical organization of the Law FLCs as the overall theme was proposed by TLS.

Participants elected to join and then suggested their own particular areas of exploration within

the broad topic. The Clinical Legal Education Working Group (CLEWG) began as an ad-hoc

working group and evolved into a Faculty Learning Community by virtue of the participants’

own preferences, contributions and continued involvement beyond the initial scope of the

mandate. “Advancing Teaching and Research Together,” on the other hand, was an FLC

proposed by the four participants themselves. In terms of the number of participants, goals,

duration and method of formation, these three FLCs represent a variety of approaches and

possibilities.


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Of these three FLCs, 12 out of 26 unique participants were selected and invited to

participate in a structured interview. The number of selected participants was based on the size

of the FLC in order to achieve a proportional sample. Two participants were selected from the

smaller FLCs of four to six participants, and four from the CLEWG, the largest of the FLCs with

approximately eight participants per year and a total of 11 unique participants over three years.

Past participants who had left the University since their participation in an FLC, or who were on

sabbatical during the 2013-2014 academic year, were excluded from the selection pool. Where

there were more than two potential participants, we attempted to select those representing a

diversity of backgrounds and perspectives (such as non-teaching staff members or visiting

professors). Many participants were involved in more than one FLC. However, for the purpose

of the interview, each selected participant was asked to focus on one specific FLC, although they

could refer to their experiences in the other FLCs if they wished.

The 12 invited participants all agreed to be interviewed in-person by a faculty member

(second author) with past experience participating in an FLC, to facilitate the sharing of candid

responses regarding their positive and negative experiences. The interviews were not audio-

recorded for the same reason. Instead, detailed notes with quotations were taken by a graduate

student assistant (fourth author) from TLS, who had previous experience providing support for

FLCs in the Faculty. From the interviews, we were able not only to learn about the participants’

experiences discussing and learning about teaching from their colleagues, but also about the

effectiveness and perceived impact of the facilitation and support from TLS.

The individual interviews, which lasted for approximately 30 minutes each, were

conducted using a three-part questionnaire [see Appendix] that was shared with interviewees

beforehand. We designed the questionnaire around three broad categories: (1) the FLC


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experience, (2) organization and process, and (3) impact on teaching and learning. Each of the

three categories served to gather information on participants’ perceptions of their experience

participating in an FLC, the structure and management of the FLC, and the impact they felt their

participation had on their teaching and their students’ learning, respectively. Key interview

results have been synthesized and are shared in the Results section.

Data Analysis

The data collected by the graduate student during the interviews were anonymized and

organized by question. The authors conducted a thematic content analysis of the data and

developed broad categories of key points for each question. These key points were summarized

in a table by question along with direct quotes from the interview data to illustrate the responses

gathered from participants. The results were then reviewed by the interviewer to ensure

accuracy and anonymity of the quotations.

Results

The FLC Experience

The first set of questions focused on the FLC experience itself and asked participants to

identify their motivation for joining an FLC. Participants were also asked to reflect on those

aspects of the experience that were the most positive or helpful, as well as on those that were the

least positive or helpful.

The major reasons identified by the participants as to their motivation to join an FLC

included the desire to build community and harness synergies from colleagues’ experiences and

ideas, accomplish change and improve their own teaching as well as the institution as a whole,

and gain personal enrichment. In the words of one interviewee, the decision to join an FLC was

motivated by a desire to “break pedagogical solitude.” It was reassuring to learn that the


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motivations of the participants we interviewed were consistent with the intended outcomes of

FLCs according to the literature.

The feedback regarding the actual experience was overwhelmingly positive. Eleven of

the twelve participants interviewed felt that the FLC experience had succeeded in validating their

feelings, breaking isolation, building community, forging strong relationships with colleagues or

providing a safe space to discuss issues, brainstorm and think freely. Moreover, participants

noted that their involvement in an FLC proved to be a “catalyst for change.”

Many of the interviewees had some constructive feedback which could be used to

improve the experience of FLCs in the Faculty for the future. Some noted the overuse of

educational jargon. Others expressed that the varied composition of the groups led to different

expectations and confidence levels amongst group members. Sometimes, there was a lack of

focus as a result of too many ideas being proposed. Moreover, despite enthusiastic and voluntary

enrolment, the reality of busy academic lives often caused FLC participation to be a low priority.

One participant even expressed guilt at investing so much energy in teaching!

Organization and Process

The second set of questions was designed to assess the organizational and process-

oriented aspects of the FLCs. In terms of the frequency and length of meetings, most

participants felt that meeting for 1.5 hours approximately once per month during the academic

year was appropriate, thereby underscoring the recommendations in the literature. Likewise,

most participants were pleased with, or neutral about, the size of their group which typically

ranged from 4-6 participants (with one FLC being larger at 8-11 participants). Not surprisingly,

scheduling meetings was mentioned as the greatest organizational challenge. The first year the

FLCs were offered, faculty members served as “conveners” and were responsible for scheduling


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their FLC’s meetings. We were operating under the assumption that faculty colleagues would be

familiar with internal scheduling logistics. This actually proved to be a logistical barrier and

meetings were not scheduled as frequently as they might have been. Facilitators subsequently

offered to manage scheduling, which was well-received. Tools such as teaching schedules,

Doodle polls and follow-up e-mails proved effective. While this helped to approach scheduling

challenges, participants nonetheless noted that busy schedules and multiple commitments meant

that attending the FLCs remained a challenge in some cases.

The questions in this section also sought to evaluate how the participants felt about the

external facilitation provided by TLS staff. Ten of the twelve participants interviewed found this

external facilitation to be key, not only because the facilitators provided invaluable resources and

expertise, but also because having such external facilitation symbolized the importance of the

FLC project, provided a set of external eyes and, in the words of one interviewee, helped

“disturb habitual patterns” by offering faculty members different perspectives and ways of

thinking.

One of the ways in which the Law FLCs departed from the directives of the literature was

in their discipline-specificity. It was therefore important to assess how the participants felt about

this aspect of the project. The reaction of the interviewees was overwhelmingly supportive, with

ten of the twelve participants interviewed being in favor of retaining discipline-specificity. They

thought it promoted intimacy and brought people together who speak the same language and

share the same concerns. Some expressed the fear that the dynamics might change if the groups

were to be inter-disciplinary; in the words of one interviewee, “we haven’t yet reached the limits

of our colleagues.” While most preferred to keep the FLCs discipline-specific, four participants

added that they would be in favor of having colleagues from other disciplines attend as guest


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participants when their presence would be appropriate for the intended discussion. Although two

participants noted that they would have preferred to have an interdisciplinary FLC experience,

others added that, to some extent, the external facilitators provided some interdisciplinary flavor

to the experience.

Group composition was also a question we wanted to examine in more detail because

FLCs are traditionally open to faculty, staff and even students. The FLCs in the Faculty of Law

were composed mainly of professors with some groups including visiting professors, doctoral

students and non-teaching colleagues. Here the responses were interesting and evidenced a fairly

consistent desire to keep the FLC as a space just for academic teaching staff. Most interviewees

felt that visiting professors should be welcome to join FLCs, and one noted that “Including

visiting professors is a good way to bring them into the culture”. Participants were less keen on

inviting post-doctoral fellows’ and doctoral students’ participation unless they had actual

teaching duties. As for undergraduate students, the interviewees were almost unanimous in

feeling that they should not be present. Most felt that it would change the dynamics of the FLC

and cause it to lose its characteristic of a “safe space.” It would also, as many expressed, induce

self-censorship and even self-conscious behavior. The answers related to the participation of

non-teaching staff, such as those involved in student affairs, Faculty governance and IT, were the

most varied. Only three of the twelve participants interviewed would unequivocally welcome

non-teaching staff. Others responded that the participation of non-teaching staff would depend

on the particular context of the FLC and whether an administrative perspective would be useful.

Impact on Teaching and Learning

As emphasized in the literature (e.g., Goto, Marshall & Gaule, 2010; Hubball, Clarke &

Beach, 2004; Miller et al., 2012), it is crucially important to assess the impact participation in


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FLCs has on teaching and learning. The third set of questions, therefore, asked participants to

identify the impact of the FLC experience on their teaching generally, and more particularly in

terms of tangible changes they made, as well as their perceptions of the changes’ impact on their

students’ learning.

In terms of general impact on teaching, the participants interviewed felt that their

participation in the FLCs promoted confidence in the classroom, thereby encouraging

experimentation with different teaching methods. Their participation also promoted enthusiasm

regarding teaching and made them more conscious about the importance of syllabi and linking

teaching to explicit course objectives. In addition to giving them new ideas, perhaps most

importantly, it decreased feelings of being alone. The realization that “everyone is struggling”

proved to be very reassuring. While the FLCs in the Faculty of Law were not designed in such a

way as to require participants to make tangible changes (i.e., create “artifacts”), there were in

fact many concrete changes that instructors adopted as a direct result of FLC participation.

These changes were felt at the macro (Faculty) level as well as the micro (course) level. They

even went so far as to affect assessment and professorial research.

For example, the Clinical Legal Education FLC had some notable impacts. At the Faculty

level, improvements were made to the Faculty website and to communication to students

regarding clinical legal education opportunities. Furthermore, an entirely new course was

created, and has proven to be very successful and popular. This course, “Critical Engagements

with Human Rights,” integrates students’ internship experiences and has resulted in student-

published papers. The catalyst for this course was the FLC on Clinical Legal Education.

Many participants made changes within existing courses, some going so far as to

reorganize their course strategies entirely. By way of example, one professor reorganized his


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course so that the students, rather than the instructor, produced the class notes and case

comments. Another professor changed the course to be project-based and still another adopted a

“flipped classroom” approach. Many noted improvements they had made to their course syllabi

and one participant interviewed stressed that even small changes, such as the one he made in

adopting a wireless remote that enabled him to move freely about the classroom, could lead to

large pedagogical changes and benefits to teaching and learning.

Changes were also made to assessments and evaluation. One professor integrated an

entirely new form of evaluation, namely an Op-Ed assignment followed by peer comments that

took the form of a letter to the editor. This particular assignment was broadly disseminated

within the university community, both within and beyond the Faculty, and has even been adopted

by a law professor at another university. Other professors created group assignments, while still

others changed the percentage of the overall mark in the course they attributed to pass/fail

assignments. Many learned about the importance of developing rubrics for evaluating existing

forms of assessment. And finally, although the FLCs were centered on teaching and did not

focus explicitly on research, in one FLC, the participants sought to develop writing support

strategies for each other through the organization of a writing retreat, which they called “Misery

Loves Company,” and to which they attribute an improvement in their research output.

It is, of course, much more challenging to document the impact of professorial

participation in an FLC on students’ actual learning. This was all the more difficult in the case

of the FLCs in the Faculty of Law because there were no explicit questionnaires students were

asked to answer, or evaluations they were asked to complete, assessing the impact of the changes

professors made to their teaching on their learning due specifically to FLC participation.

However, as a result of positive comments in student course evaluations, informal student


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feedback in person and via e-mail, improved student work and a sense of a better classroom

experience, many interviewees felt that the positive impact FLC participation had on their

teaching followed through in their students’ learning.

For example, two professors interviewed felt that as a result of pedagogical changes they

had made, students obtained a better understanding of knowledge production, since they were

now in a position of producing knowledge and not merely passively receiving it in the classroom.

Several professors noted an improvement in student skill development as a result of changes

made to forms of assessment, as the new forms of assessment required skills that went beyond

studying for a written examination. One professor noted that the class projects initiated as a

result of FLC participation extended beyond the classroom to the greater community, in that

students invited outside participants to attend their presentations, and disseminated their projects

via international blogs, Twitter, and presentations to other educational institutions. As these

examples suggest, while the precise impact on students’ learning was difficult to pinpoint, the

majority of participants interviewed perceived there to be a positive impact.

Overall, the participants we interviewed found their participation in the FLC to be an

overwhelmingly positive experience, one that ten of the twelve interviewees would repeat. One

participant even suggested that since the FLCs that focused on teaching and learning were so

successful, the Faculty ought to think about creating FLCs to discuss and improve research.

Lessons Learned

Reflecting on our experience facilitating and participating in these FLCs, we have

identified three key factors that we perceive as having a major role in the FLCs’ success, as well

as the success of the larger Law Teaching Network. They are: (1) flexibility and responsiveness

to the Faculty context, (2) a collaborative approach, and (3) appropriate, embedded support


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structures. These factors are related to the concept of readiness, or conditions conducive to

change, as discussed by Lee, Hyman and Luginbuhl (2007). Although we recognize that these

key factors are interrelated, we discuss each separately, below.

Flexibility and responsiveness to Faculty context

The FLC offerings in the Faculty of Law grew out of an overarching goal to generate a

shared commitment to excellent, innovative and engaging teaching and learning practices. The

FLCs evolved from year to year as we intentionally developed approaches and solutions to

address needs expressed by the faculty as they arose. For example, during the first year the

program was very structured, with topics suggested by TLS. Based on feedback from the first

year, we introduced a more flexible approach in subsequent years, suggesting fewer FLC topics

and encouraging interested instructors to propose their own topics. We also recognized the

potential of other conversational opportunities and administrative structures to evolve into FLCs,

one example being the ad hoc Clinical Legal Education Working Group previously described,

which ultimately became our longest-running FLC. Although our process of facilitating and

supporting FLCs was quite intentional, we also understood the importance of integrating

educational development opportunities in an organic manner, recognizing and responding to the

Faculty-specific context and practices. In this way, our approach was consistent with some of

the recommended elements of educational development practice. We made efforts to understand

and respect established faculty perspectives, and work with the instructors “starting where they

[were]” (Timmermans, 2011, p. 144), addressing their needs and capitalizing upon opportunities

that presented themselves.

Because of the novelty of the program and the faculty members’ initial desire for

informal conversation opportunities, we realized that we needed to be more flexible about


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requiring FLC participants to create what the literature would call “artifacts” (Cox, 2002), or to

make tangible changes as a result of their FLC participation. We wanted to allow a wider variety

of individual and group goals that could range from focusing on the process itself and not simply

an end product (recognizing that process can be a meaningful outcome in itself), to more

traditional conceptions of artifacts as described in the literature. Ultimately, there were many

examples of concrete changes that participants attributed to their participation in the FLCs, as

discussed in the previous section.

Collaboration

TLS and the Law Faculty’s joint approach to this project presented the interesting

opportunity, and accompanying challenges, of sustained educational development work in a

discipline-specific setting (Lee, Hyman & Luginbuhl, 2007). The appointment of a Faculty

liaison, a Law faculty member who worked closely with TLS in the planning and development of

the FLCs (and other initiatives), was key in articulating the Faculty’s needs and perspectives to

the educational developers, enabling the latter to respond to those needs in a meaningful,

contextualized way. The liaison, acting as a “cultural broker” (McAlpine & Harris, 2006, p. 14),

provided valuable advice in matters related to faculty interests, culture and preferred modes of

communication. In the case of the FLCs, the Faculty liaison was instrumental in topic selection,

general communication to the Faculty, feedback on the development of discipline-specific

pedagogical resources, and encouraging colleagues’ participation from within the Faculty.

Beyond the Faculty liaison, we made a conscious effort to draw in several other faculty

members interested and committed to fostering these exchanges within the Faculty. A

sympathetic subunit (Lee, Hyman & Luginbuhl, 2007) of committed faculty was key in fostering

other colleagues’ interest in the project and in its ultimate success. In some cases, pedagogical


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strategies developed during the FLCs were later showcased as examples in pedagogy workshops

and materials shared with colleagues in the Faculty. Indeed, this very article is the result of such

a collaboration: the Law Faculty member co-author played a key role in encouraging her

colleagues to be interviewed. Further, her participation, perspective and experience within the

Law Faculty context greatly facilitated the process of data gathering and interpretation.

Support structures

The FLC program started in response to an identified need from the Law Faculty: to have

more opportunities to talk colleague-to-colleague about their teaching. This need was

recognized by the Dean as an opportunity to develop a larger teaching and learning project in the

Faculty. The Dean’s support was demonstrated through his sponsorship of the formal launch of

the FLC program, as well as the incentives and recognition he provided for participation. The

University’s Provost saw the potential transferability of the concept of a Faculty-wide

pedagogical collaboration to other Faculty contexts and funded the multi-year project. The

support from the Dean and Provost to the FLC program and the larger project signaled a

commitment to teaching and learning from the University’s senior administration. This proved

to be an ideal combination of readiness conditions: leadership support was provided in response

to an authentic need within a faculty culture that was favorable to collaboration (Lee, Hyman &

Luginbuhl, 2007).

Transferability of our FLC experience to other institutional contexts: Key questions

Reflecting on what we came to recognize as three important factors in the success of our

FLCs led to our retrospective development of a number of key contextual questions that would

be pertinent when transferring our experience to other institutional contexts:


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1. Why is an FLC program being established? Is there an authentic need/desire within the

Faculty(ies)? If so, what are the particular needs and desires?

2. Who is supporting the request? (both within and beyond the Faculty, at multiple

institutional levels)

3. What resources are available? (e.g., people, space, time, money)

4. What are the preliminary desired outcomes and expectations for the FLC program?

5. What form of FLC would best meet the recognized needs in terms of size, composition,

topics of discussion and frequency of meetings?

6. What meaningful incentives can be provided for participation?

7. Is there a key point person willing to work with the Center for Teaching and Learning in

the planning and development of the FLCs and, in discipline-specific contexts, to serve as

a Faculty liaison/cultural broker? Further, can a sympathetic subunit be found or

developed?

8. Once FLCs are underway, what feedback mechanisms can be established to assess and

respond to evolving needs?

9. What evaluation tools could be developed to assess the perceived impact of changes on

teaching and learning, brought about by FLC participation?

These questions help to identify the needs, purposes, and initial factors that we suggest be

considered when developing an FLC program.

Conclusion

Our participants’ responses suggest that discipline-specific FLCs can succeed in building

a sense of community that fosters conversations about teaching and learning. We recognize that

discipline-specificity represents a departure from the recommendations in the FLC literature but


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we suggest, based on our experience and results shared here, that this can be a valuable

approach. Moreover, we propose that keeping a spirit of responsiveness in terms of specific

Faculty contexts may result in other justified departures from some of the more prescriptive

elements of the FLC literature, such as requiring members to produce tangible artifacts.

The academy is often characterized by pedagogical solitude, which our data indicates can

be mitigated by FLCs. Moreover, FLCs can be a catalyst for tangible change in participants’

teaching by improving confidence levels, encouraging experimentation and providing new ideas

to try out in the classroom. These changes in teaching have the potential to impact students’

learning in a beneficial manner.


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Appendix

Faculty Learning Communities Questionnaire

FLC experience

1. What motivated you to participate in the [insert name] FLC?

2. What was the most positive or helpful aspect of the FLC experience itself? Do you have

a key conceptual take-away, insight or “aha” moment from the FLC experience?

3. What was least positive or helpful about the FLC experience?

Organization and process

1. Were the frequency and length of the meetings appropriate?

2. Was it useful to have external facilitation/resource personnel? Why or why not?

3. Did you appreciate the discipline-specific nature of the FLC, or would you have preferred

that it had been interdisciplinary?

4. What did you think about the size and the group composition of your FLC? What would

you recommend as an ideal group? (i.e., in addition to size, do you think it should be only

instructors, or instructors and students/non-teaching staff/visiting instructors, etc.?)

5. Were there any organizational or process-related challenges associated with your

participation in this FLC?

Impact on your teaching

1. Do you think your participation in the FLC has influenced your teaching? If so, how?

2. Can you name something tangible that you changed or implemented as a result?

3. Do you think your participation in the FLC may have influenced your students’ learning

experience? If so, in what way and how do you know? (e.g., better results, student

feedback, anecdotes)


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Future Involvement

1. Would you participate in an FLC in the future? Why or why not?

Is there anything else that you would like to say, that we haven’t had a chance to discuss?

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.

Table 1. Summary of characteristics for three selected FLCs

Selected FLCs Characteristics

Rethinking Your Course (3 FLCs) 13 unique participants (1 participated twice)

Proposed by Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) Broad goal: Enhance individual courses via an open-ended course

design learning community Offered three times over three years, with different topics and

participants Outcomes: A variety of new teaching and evaluation methods

Clinical Legal Education Working Group (CLEWG) 11 unique participants (not all participated all 3 years)

Proposed by the Faculty administration originally as an ad-hoc working group; became an FLC

Broad goal: Enhance communication and integration of clinical legal education offerings

Same group continued for three years Outcomes: Clinical legal education website, new course, collegial relationships developed

Advancing Teaching and Research Together 4 unique participants

Proposed by faculty members Broad goal: Personal sharing of strategies for successful integration

of teaching and research Continued for one year Outcomes: Half-day writing retreat, “Misery loves company”

Overcoming Pedagogical Solitude: The transformative power ...

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